The Sunni-Shiite Divide Explained In 100 Seconds

The battle between Islam's two major branches began over 1400 years ago when the Islamic prophet Mohammad died and the two sides clashed over who should succeed him. This centuries old 'war' is once again threatening Iraq's (and indeed the Middle East - and thus the world's) stability. The Washington Post's senior national security correspondent Karen DeYoung explains in 100 seconds just how we got here...

it takes a certain type of idiot to believe in an invsible man in the sky who is biased towards certain groups of people but not others. The divide between Shia and Sunni is no more illogical than most of the bible, torah, etc...

There is a 'who' being cloaked here. Religion is the mask that covers the 'who' (not talking about the british band). When we find out the who we will know what we are truly up against. ISIS has leadership. Who is the ultimate leader? The story of their conflict - history - is used to leverage fodder for cannons.

I think the truth is starting to show through the cracks. The Saudis created Isis and AQ and with help from the US use it to destabilize the region. The US could give a shit who they're backing as long as no strong popular leaders are allowed to emerge to oppose them, which is made easier by the ethnic tensions in the area. Iraq, Syria, Lybia, Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, all clusterfucks resulting from US intervention. If it wasn't so evil it would be brilliant.

Unfortunately it is wishful thinking. But it should be thought of anyway. My best take after following this over time is that we already do have (or are close to) have green technologies (better than solar/wind) that simply aren't getting to market because they are a threat to the oil revenue stream.. and the pockets that stream goes into. Hopefully (wishfully), a way can be found to bring new technologies online without having to wait until the existing system collapses and we spend a generation or two in the 19th century.

Let's take the argument to the individual and personal responsibility. I have reigned in my lifestyle over the years and am taking steps to insulate myself and my family from this madness as much as possible. I am currently building the system to take my well off the grid, thereby being able to pump water without the costs of power from the grid. I already grow quite a bit of my own food, have chickens and fresh eggs, and a host of other things to be more self reliant.

The notion of green energy is only wishful thinking if viewed in terms of whole house systems and commercially available systems linked to the current lifestyle paradigm. Take it piecemeal and little by little you become more self reliant and less attached to the system.

The ironies of modern convenience wrapped in technology means less freedom and more regulation (in term so using monopolies/oligopolies such as telecom, nat gas, water and gasoline) Going back to the stone ages (which I admire) is the only surest way to ensure liberty. What a fucking sad state of affairs.

"The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles? ~John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, 20 June 1815"

Unfortunately the more ordinary style of consciousness will always use the the fables presented to the masses to discredit all pathways to truth, (religion means pathway to truth). The more advanced thinkers, Mayans, Natie Americans, Buddhists etc of the ancient systems realized the fundamental nature of the universe is the life force, nature or the light we see when the atom is split.

The Hindu understands this as well as others. The sounds of the universe or Shruti can be heard by simply placing a sea shell to ones ear. They were always there and always will be there even after man and the earth or no more. This life force will continue on building more planets, univertses and creatures of the finite world.

It is really so simple but unfortunately a pure truth that is always under attack.

"Saddham Hussein would have dealt with these problems singlehandedly. Time to put him back in charge.

Oh wait!"

Yep....too late. That genie is out of the bottle....because we saw our future going into the toilet due to Peak Cheap Energy and the need to have a forward base of operations in the Middle East in order to secure whats left of Cheap Energy.

Now we have unleashed Hell over there....we have a convenient excuse to always have a Boogyman to secure further military spending and adventures over there....without having to look like we are ALWAYS going to be there due to the above reasons of securing the last remains of Cheap Energy.

Catholics and Protestants figured out a way to settle their differences after a few hundred years. Muslims have been slaughtering each other continuously, in an escalating fashion, since the moment the "prophet" died over a millennium ago. The Iran-Iraq war was an absolute bloodbath of senseless killing and highly representative of what this deranged ideology is all about: death, ignorance, destruction, and insanity.

To be fair the bloodbath was between two psychotic regimes that were put into power directly by US/British interests. It is hard to say what the leadership of the Middle East would look like if not for constant Israeli/US/European intervention. I'm of the belief that most people just want to get by and live life, and that includes the majority of Muslims.

The Saudi RF and all the other despots have been forced on the Middle East. The radicals who grow from tehir tyranny ensure that the folks just trying to live over there never have a decent option.

Unless I'm way out to lunch, the Iran Iraq war had the fingerprints of the west ALL over it, which automatically throws ideology on religious grounds out the window. The US has never gotten over Iran getting the Western backed tinpot dictator out of power and the iran iraq war at least in my view had an echo of that in it.

The fact is Iran hasn't attacked anyone pre emptively since they were Iran. Despite the media narrative Iran isn't anywhere near as brutal as the west says. As far as I know they have the largest population of jewish residents in the area outside of Israel, and they were offered to be paid to move there and they chose not to.

THe savage muslim meme is an easy point to take. The only hitch is, at least in the last 100 years the West has been intimately involved in "Radical Islam" so that alone says there is more to the story than a group of people fighting over who gets Mohammed's job after he dies.

The Iraqi attack on Iran had little to nothing to do with a Sunni/Shia religious war - you just don't know what you're talking about.

also, there were long periods without signficant inter-Muslim conflict, for example, under the Ottomans. Most of the last millenium featured conflicts between Christian sects. The feuds between England and Spain and England and France had much more to do with the Protestant/Catholic schism than the US-engendered {and supplied} Iraq-Iran war had anything to do with Sunni versus Shia per se.

As for a deranged ideology - guess which religion represents the Creator as directing the following:\

‘You are a holy people unto the LORD thy God and He has chosen you above all others upon the face of the earth…Therefore when the LORD your God brings you into the land you are to possess and casts out the many peoples living there, you shall slaughter them all and utterly destroy them…You shall make no agreements with them nor show them any mercy. You shall destroy their altars, break down their images, cut down their groves and burn their graven images with fire…"

What happens when that religion gets power, money, and nuclear weapons?

Arguably, Jewish colonialist treatment of the indigenous people of Palestine is merely fundy/orthodox Judaism free to practice itself.

I think what we need is a new religion, one based on a Planck energy density limit.

This automatically leads to a "source" of negative mass that exhibits the properties of omni presence, and omnipotence, amoungst others; everything else having positive mass comes into being and again passes out of being and is set initially at one Planck mass to decay over space-time until it eventually ends up nothing again.

In doing so one eliminates the "big bang" thinking based on the premise of singularities. In my view singularities are far more far fetched than the existance of a God.

If God had calculable properties there would be nothing to argue about.

What the hell is going on with all these accounts that have been popping up these last few days saying the government should nuke it all? The only person I think would actually support such a repulsive idea would be Krugman, because it would be broken windows going full retard.

I was going to mention the same thing. They're not all new accounts -- some are well seasoned -- but most have virtually no comment history and then suddenly they' appear and advocating things as extreme as it can be.

This is accurate on the surface, but these issues in the middle east aren't plain shia sunni. They are rooted in Wahhabism - the radical death cult style islam espoused by Saudi Arabia.

For the quillionth time, the majority of sunnis hate the likes of ISIS as much as anyone. AGAIN, the Syrian Arab army s mostly sunni as an example of this and they kill hundreds of terrorist radical sunnis DAILY.

Wahhabism stands alone on many of its principles and practices and you not mentioning that misses the boat. Boiling this conflict down to a superficial shia sunni conflict embarrases you guys journalistically and serves to misinform readers in the same way the MSM does.

These guys consider anyone who doesn't live and practice exactly and precisely what they practice apostates.

It's great to know what the difference between shia and sunni is for cliff claven style odd fact dropping to the average mass of retardates, but it is a distraction from the fact that the problems we are seeing today is because of 1 brach of radical sunni islam which sunnis generally hate being fostered around the globe by saudi arabia AND the west.

Well made point. The only thing I would add is that, the west interfered on the back end and now is poised on the front end. When I hear Charles KRauthammer quote General Jack Keene that "there needs to be air strikes without respect to the syria iraq border" it reinforces where the neo con position always has been.

I gotta say, Berri doing fuck all but golfing is almost refreshing. Our best path to fixing this would be to nuke riyadh and stop arming al quaeda.

I don't know about the rest of you, but sometimes, when I hear someone say that the sun rises in the east when I know for a fact it rises in the east-southeast, I want to cut their fucking heads off and pitch their convulsing bodies into mass graves, riddle them with bullets, and torture their families.

Considering that the Koran was written well after Mohammad and Al Khdir. And Mohammad as a man specifically told his followers to follow his word by spirit, to offer no pictures of himself, to ask for his anonymity and privacy. So obviously the first reasonable reaction to that request was go build an empire.

How likely is it that the whole story is written down and given as is? Or even the people stating their position are actually the people in the bloodline, not like DNA tests were around then. And history if full of pretenders, European history is famous for it, don't for one second believe it's only in one region. Stupidity and greed are international. lol

Anycase, like most religions that find themselves going through schisms. It always (always.) drives the branch offshoots to war. Typically to meet someone else's defined problem, which usually involved money, land or both. Mohammad has lots to say about other people's problems in that situation. Mostly it was "Screw that noise, I got other things to do", because he watched the European churches going through the same thing in that time frame.

Sounds like another guy I think, no? Guy with no money, helping people and getting by. I understand that an empire was built for that guy. And by golly, that turned out fantastic didn't it? Peace everywhere today. Horray! Oh wait...

Twelve gauge bosons (force carriers): the photon of electromagnetism, the three W and Z bosons of the weak force, and the eight gluons of the strong force;

The Higgs boson.

That is; a cat, a rock, a piece of tupperware or a person is made of all of the 'stuff' listed, and that's only what's been defined over the past couple of years. Now what makes a cat, a cat or a rock, a rock or you you. No clue.

But the question certainly gets people up in the morning to go figure it out and has helped philosophy majors get laid for millenia. Anything else is a complex marketing effort to package something people might not be ready for and judging by history does more harm than good at times.

Duality is easy to market as well because if you define two offers you can pretty much get people to believe that they are making a choice. It's why most of the world is mystified about the American political system of red and blue. Both parties are the same people and offer nothing in terms of a solution. It's just a brand, like coke or pepsi.

In religious contexts the idea of duality is found in all "new" cultures somewhere. Able and cain. Apollo and Dyonisus. Bible -> by-bal -> by Ba'al, Enki and Quran -> Qur-an / Anu. Osirius and Horus. Thor and Loki. etc.

As if there is a side to having faith. It is either there, or it is not. But if you are building temples, it's a great way to fill those seats and get cash flow moving. Until someone steps on someone's toes, then all hell breaks loose.

Even in tao it is overlooked that two make one and find the balance with the two. It isn't a question of defining 'centre'. A centre always shifts with the situation given at that time. The balance is all that matters or restoring it. Sometimes that requires a certain amount of unloading of bad ideas to make it happen.

Example in Justice; the 'centre' 1000 years ago, as in what was defined as reasonable. When justice was served when catching a thief. The thief's hand would be cut off and nailed to the village square announcement pole. See perfectly reasonable. lol!

So obviously things change over time. Today it's a bit better organized and there are lots of hard working people in law enforcement that struggle with defining that balance of what the spirit of law offers. Then establishing the practice of it so it fits with the given situation of society.

Like wicking a needle and thread. The thread goes through the centre of the eye of needle because the situation calls for it. That and it's next to impossible sewing a button back on a shirt any other way.

I'm keeping it to specifics that offer some referential examples that anyone can look up. I'll avoid the whole politics of sex today, the word has been out on that because it's not really that important. It simply is what it is. Freud once said sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Men are men. Women are Women. All shapes, sizes, colours, personalities and preferences. The situation takes care of itself because it's how everyone is wired up on the "hardware" level. How the hardware gets used, temple or amusement park or somewhere in between, there's benefits and costs that are recognizable.

Here's the weird thing about when people go into the female/male dichotomy I've noticed. Everyone's got something to say about it, good, bad or indifferent. Now... What would you replace it with?

Mitosis and meiosis? You one day stop and decide you want kids so you cut off your finger and grow someone in vat from it. Sounds as much fun as watching paint dry. Plus there are severe complications in cloning that are not fixable, copies of copies of copies, something always gets lost and stays missing.

or Autogamy; literally...it's where a species fucks itself and has baby by way of self fertilization. "What you do last night?" becomes pretty predictable, because no one would ever leave the house if that were the case.

However in terms of the science of biology. Everyone is born female. Everyone. it's only weeks after conception that a sex establishes itself. That's biology. Doesn't matter if we are talking about fish or people. Anyone you've met, started as a girl in the womb.

Certain genes on the Y chromosome (if present) are activated at around eight weeks and male-associated hormones, chiefly testosterone, are produced that act on some cells to start forming male-specific organs. Without these hormones kicking in, which is the case in XX embryos when no Y chromosome in present, the cells in the developing embryo go on to form female-specific organs. This means that fertilized embryos under normal circumstances will develop female-specific sex organs unless a hormone cue is activated that signals otherwise.

And it's not even predetermined either. Sex ratio's can change with temperature. What a person is eating. Lifestyle. Dozens of reasons the Y chromosome doesn't kick off the shot of testosterone or the timing is off, late or early makes a difference as well. Again all sorts of stuff.

. . .nature presents us with sex anatomy spectrums. Breasts, penises, clitorises, scrotums, labia, gonads—all of these vary in size and shape and morphology. So-called “sex” chromosomes can vary quite a bit, too. But in human cultures, sex categories get simplified into male, female, and sometimes intersex, in order to simplify social interactions, express what we know and feel, and maintain order.

So nature doesn’t decide where the category of “male” ends and the category of “intersex” begins, or where the category of “intersex” ends and the category of “female” begins. Humans decide. Humans (today, typically doctors) decide how small a penis has to be, or how unusual a combination of parts has to be, before it counts as intersex. Humans decide whether a person with XXY chromosomes or XY chromosomes and androgen insensitivity will count as intersex.

and while human bodies present in many variables, the duality of "man/woman" is required for cultures to maintain their grip on the human minds,

and so the meme is maintained, by repetition and rote memory, even though some bodies hold their own truths.

the Tao's perspective is a seed of the Other in everyOne, no true separation, non-duality as Truth.

early on, when exploring "belief systems" I liked "Hindu" as a good jumping off place, use-full in extracting the Western FatherGod meme I was raised to believe was "reality". I liked the notion of "karma" as a balancing agent, and "lifetimes" lived towards increasing awareness. . .

when I came upon the "advaita/non-dual" concept - THAT was the deepest resonance I'd encountered.

that we are One awareness experiencing ItSelf, a wonderful mind-blow, that mirrored respectful inner-journeys mapped with plant entheogens. . .

Nature, the nature-all world, holds all the clues One needs, but the Mind defends its reality to the. . .Death, whereupon,

Peace centers withIn.

((and then we get back to the World, and eternal arguments, the Mind's Dance, heh))

Doesn't really matter what the philosophy or politics behind it is. The fact remains that biologically all men are chicks with dicks as per a timed sequence of events that make a man happen with a infinitesimal amount of testosterone.

The illusion in a political situation is only the one you allow your self to be tricked. Obviously the options of how a person is baffled with bullshit spread the entire field of a civilization. All Ideas and Memes, good and bad, are all voluntary subscriptions of belief. Some times an individual will subscribe to a personal belief that no one else shares, but is unsubstantiated. Or a community agrees on a belief is made as practice, but is unsubstantiated.

Like you touch on, the history of sex would agree with this.

Once a upon a time in ancient tribes, all over the world, people would see the idea of menstruation as a powerful cycle that would shadow the phases of the moon. And it probably creeped the shit out of a couple of people. In some cultures, a residence would be set up outside of town for a woman to go through her cycle...lest the evil spirits came out of the woman.

Today though, let's see: we have fresh cut flowers, perfume samples wrapped in a magazine, chocolate and midol to deal with 'evil' spirits of PMS. And for men, we have places for snacks and drinks, golf courses and hardware stores to go hide in. Because if any guy I know built a shed in the back of their place and demanded that their Missus go live in there for a week. Yeah...that's a short trip to an ass kicking and the palm sisters.

It's only the individual mind that makes the distinction or society that provides the definition that a cigar is just a cigar. Sometimes it is just what it is. Instead of over analyzing the the lit cohiba tobacco penis that people suck on, it's just easier if the cigar is just a cigar. (I'm sorry in advance, but from this point forward you'll always see a cigar as a lit tobacco dildo. Once seen, it can never be unseen.)

It's only a "path" because that's how it is packaged. It's just as much a marketing effort as branding toothpaste.

Let's look at Siddhartha, he started a prince and ended up as...Siddhartha. No more, no less. Just is.

In comparison to Johnny Appleseed, he was a real man btw. He spent his entire life planting apple trees, honing orchard management strategies and living in the bush. Johnny's accomplishments are no less important than Siddhartha over a life time.

Both followed their path and discovered where their happy medium was while absorbing the lessons life offers everyone. And simply sharing what they knew. They did what they loved to do and liked helping people out. Pretty easy recipe for success in life.

On the flip side of the coin. The Mighty Khan. A man from nothing to conquer a world with a army that has never been matched since. Only reason Europe doesn't speak Mongol today is because the Khan died and everyone headed back to visit the body. Then the War of the Kingdoms started up (problems with succession). Or Alexander the Great. A single man from out of nowhere that did more in the first 20 years of his life than all of his descendants combined in shaping the entire MENA, Indian, European regions.

It is all about perspective and the application of how a thread goes through the eye of the needle. If balancing history against a religion. Avoid getting too hung up on symbols to find that sweet spot. Unless you like them, because there are lots of a cool graphics out there. Some of the stuff coming out of photo-shopping competitions is amazing. There's a certain meditation that comes with creating art. Too much or too little, and an artist becomes their own enemy in defining what they've made.

Or maybe that's the duality you see, the critical self. If there is no questioning, there is no improvement. Truth has it's functional role there in finding that balance.

well, the words I use are merely describing my perspective, as do we all. in describing the Tao as a "path" I'm simply using language to illustrate a felt-thought, in this case "path" being a linear "one foot in front of the other towards an awareness". . . and the Tao itself also states and re-states that the description is not the described.

my understanding - and that merely states "my perspective" of course - of the Tao is nameless, formless, All That Is. and "we" are That, merely in a form that has certain attributes expected of it, of "human". and so we become that which is expected, unquestioningly. or we don't, and are shunned by the overwhelming majority as "not really fully human" or just "weird" - and exist outside of the mainstream types, out on the fringes.

Or maybe that's the duality you see, the critical self. If there is no questioning, there is no improvement. Truth has it's functional role there in finding that balance.

the "duality" I've experienced is believing that Self is separate from All. the separate self can be called "ego" or anything else that makes sense for the describer - words are merely that vehicle, descriptions of. and so "non-dual" understanding arises when one realises there is no separation, that we are all Consciousness (or whatever name is used) experiencing itSelf, from myriad points-of-viewing.

it's a realisation that can happen, and life goes on, no real difference beyond a shift in awareness, which is Reality.

"Ceasing to conceptualize means ceasing to perceive objectively, which means perceiving non-objectively. It is to see the universe without choice or judgement, and without getting into subject-object relationship. What happens then? Nothing, except that you are as you were before you were born: everything." ~Ramesh Balsekar

I see where again where voting on even prophets has turned into a losing proposition. Democracy, the god that failed.
Other then that governments need man made religions, it gives them another avenue to divide and enslave.

What needs to be mentioned is how those sectarian differences have been deliberately exacerbated in accordance with Zionist and US neoCON/neoLIB plans.

The US government does not turn a blind eye to Saudi wahhabism merely because they have oil.

The Iraqi armed forces and government was deliberately (not mistakenly) disbanded by Bremer (a Kissinger protege') after the US invasion in expectation of creating chaos (and the additional US and Iraqi casualties that predictably would result from that fomented chaos).

The pro-Saddam posts on this article ruin an otherwise good discussion.

I spent a good deal of time explaining to people during the 1st Gulf War that the region was much more complex than most people understood. I've given up on that because most people just tune out and spout whatever they hear on CNN, MSNBC, Fox, NPR, etc. Saddam bad, must go.

It wasn't that removing Saddam was a bad idea, it was a bad idea because there was no real plan. And when I say a plan, I mean a plan that makes sense and provides some stability and security to the people of what we call Iraq. The only plans we have had towards the middle east was to keep lining the right pockets at any cost to the world.

Saddam was a really really bad guy. He wasn't the only one who knew how to run that part of the world, he was the only one with the nads to stand up to the Saudis and the US. He was a great example of what is wrong with the world today when you let banks, the media, and cronyism pull all the strings.

And with legacy come subjugated populations putting bloodlines at each others throats. Over a millennium being inbred beyond comprehension and reason. Only to be matched by driving diplomacy by the tip of a sword. Thankfully it's been the end of many to the relief of the rest of the general population that couldn't give a shit that work for a living. Other than professors and interested students that study the historical to find the lessons in it.

Which is, the principal problem with bloodline inheritance is while everyone might get a 'king' after a huge war, it doesn't solve the issue of why a war started in the first place.

Which is people would have been pissed about something at that time. You know, the usual list of completely resolvable griefs that typically involve little more than exerting some self control, having a bit of modesty and understanding that the people fighting should have never been the assholes at the table. Ever. All the decisions costs neither 'kingly' party anything and their people everything eventually.

Today is no different, still the world would do better with teachers and less kings offering their awesome kingness.

BULL. Countries w both groups get along JUST FINE until CIA steps in w a false flag and bags of cash for whichever dumbass teenaged mouthbreathers want 'revenge'.

Point in case, the first golden mosque bombing in Samarra was generally considered to be just that, but somehow managed to foment violent sectarianism regardless. There will always be dumbasses who fall for this shit. But let's dispose with the Westplaining/Westplanations PLEASE.

An Iraqi Mukhabarat (General Military Intelligence Directorate) Top Secret report, “The Emergence of Wahhabism and its Historical Roots,” dated September 2002 and released on March 13, 2008, by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency in translated English form, points to the Dönmeh roots of the founder of the Saudi Wahhabi sect of Islam, Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab. Much of the information is gleaned from the memoirs of a “Mr. Humfer,” (as spelled in the DIA report, “Mr. Hempher” as spelled the historical record) a British spy who used the name “Mohammad,” claimed to be an Azeri who spoke Turkish, Persian, and Arabic and who made contact with Wahhab in the mid-18th century with a view of creating a sect of Islam that would eventually bring about an Arab revolt against the Ottomans and pave the way for the introduction of a Jewish state in Palestine. Humfer’s memoirs are recounted by the Ottoman writer and admiral Ayyub Sabri Pasha in his 1888 work, “The Beginning and Spreading of Wahhabism.”

In his book, The Dönmeh Jews, D. Mustafa Turan writes that Wahhab’s grandfather, Tjen Sulayman, was actually Tjen Shulman, a member of the Jewish community of Basra, Iraq. The Iraqi intelligence report also states that in his book, The Dönmeh Jews and the Origin of the Saudi Wahhabis, Rifat Salim Kabar reveals that Shulman eventually settled in the Hejaz, in the village of al-Ayniyah what is now Saudi Arabia, where his grandson founded the Wahhabi sect of Islam. The Iraqi intelligence report states that Shulman had been banished from Damascus, Cairo, and Mecca for his “quackery.” In the village, Shulman sired Abdul Wahhab. Abdel Wahhab’s son, Muhammad, founded modern Wahhabism.

The Iraqi report also makes some astounding claims about the Saud family. It cites Abdul Wahhab Ibrahim al-Shammari’s book, The Wahhabi Movement: The Truth and Roots, which states that King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud, the first Kingdom of Saudi Arabia monarch, was descended from Mordechai bin Ibrahim bin Moishe, a Jewish merchant also from Basra. In Nejd, Moishe joined the Aniza tribe and changed his name to Markhan bin Ibrahim bin Musa. Eventually, Mordechai married off his son, Jack Dan, who became Al-Qarn, to a woman from the Anzah tribe of the Nejd. From this union, the future Saud family was born.

Abiding and chronic insanity. The religions that breed the kind of people who see their God-In-An-Orange-Fireball - Fundamentalist Xtianity, Fundy Islam, Fundy Zionism ... are going to bring us to a very bad place. Because they are ready to blow up the world to hasten their Rapture.

This is all Muhammad's fault, because he had no surviving sons and never named a successor. He did say that after he died, Islam would fragment into one true sect and seventy-two false sects.

Then again, when you're the leader of gang of cutthroat bandits, you need to keep your subordinates off-balance so they'll compete for your favor instead of plotting against you. If you named a successor, he might kill you quick before you could change your mind.

I’ve always mused over the false motives imbedded in some religions and religious practices. Like the Mayan Priests, who claimed that people born retarded or with birth defects were special in the eyes of the gods and, therefore, uh, more worthy of ritual sacrifice.

Not like they wanted to weed those people out of the gene pool or anything.

Shia's to the left (Syria), Shia's to the right (Iran) here I am stuck in the middle with you (Saddam, Sunni).

They are definitely off the Bush NWO script now if they are ALLOWING Sunni's back into Iraq as a major player. Qatar and Obama stuck the shiv in their back with the Saudi's quietly egging it all on and by doing so are sticking it to Pappy Bush and his NWO crew by implicitly giving consent.

And back to the first gulf war in 1991 they found chemical weapons that weren't accounted for during the second audit right before the second gulf war in Iraq. Most people seem to ignore that little fact claiming they had no WMDs. They most certainly did since those weapons weren't accounted for. The question is where did they go and more importantly did they not want the weapons to be found on purpose. I'll give everyone a hint Baathists to the left of me (Syria).

But this is a different story. It involves the prospect of inspectors finding very serious weapons and then saying:

“Wait! The weapons’ containers have American labels on them!”

That didn’t happen, but it could have. And then what a fiasco would have ensued, since the US government was about to wage war to “end Saddam’s threat.” Yet, the US had armed him.

In 1975, the US signed on to an international treaty banning the production, use, and stockpiling of biological weapons. Ditto for chemical weapons, in 1993. Another treaty.

Here’s a quote from the Washington Post (9/4/13, “When the US looked the other way on chemical weapons”): “…The administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush authorized the sale to Iraq of numerous items…including poisonous chemicals and deadly biological viruses, such as anthrax and bubonic plague…”

Between 1985 and 1989, a US 501C3 firm, American Type Culture Collection, sent Iraq up to 70 shipments of various bio war agents, including 21 strains of anthrax.

Between 1984 and 1989, the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) sent Iraq at least 80 different bio war agents, including botulinum toxoid, dengue virus, and West Nile antigen and antibody.

Then we have a comprehensive article by William Blum in the April 1998 Progressive called “Anthrax for Export.”Blum cites a 1994 Senate report confirming that, in this 1985-1989 time period, US shipments of anthrax and other bio war agents to Iraq were licensed by…drum roll, cymbal crash…the US Dept. of Commerce.

...

Blum quotes from the Senate report:

“These biological materials were not attenuated or weakened and were capable of reproduction. It was later learned that these microorganisms exported by the United States were identical to those the United Nations inspectors found and removed from the Iraqi biological warfare program.”

This 1994 Senate report also indicates that the US exported to Iraq the precursors for chemwar agents, actual plans for chemical and bio war production facilities, and chemical-warhead filling equipment. The exports continued until at least November 28, 1989.

Blum lists a few other bio war agents the US shipped to Iraq. Histoplasma Capsulatum, Brucella Melitensis, Clostridium Perfringens, Clostridium tetani–as well as E. coli, various genetic materials, human and bacterial DNA.

Blum also points out that a 1994 Pentagon report dismissed any connection between all these bio war agents and Gulf War Illness. But the researcher who headed up that study, Joshua Lederberg, was actually a director of the US firm that had provided the most bio war material to Iraq in the 1980s: the American Type Culture Collection.

Newsday revealed that the CEO of the American Type Culture Collection was a member of the US Dept. of Commerce’s Technical Advisory Committee. See, the Dept. of Commerce had to license and approve all those exports of bio war agents carried out by the American Type Culture Collection. Get the picture?

Now, as to other US companies which dealt bio war or chemwar agents to Iraq—all such sales having been approved by the US government—the names of these companies are contained in records of the 1992 Senate hearings, “United States Export Policy Toward Iraq Prior to Iraq’s Invasion of Kuwait,” Senate Report 102-996, Senate Committee on Banking Housing and Urban Affairs, 102d Congress, Second Session (October 27, 1992):

This also from the Blum article: “A larger number of American firms supplied Iraq with the specialized computers, lasers, testing and analyzing equipment, and other instruments and hardware vital to the manufacture of nuclear weapons, missiles, and delivery systems. Computers, in particular, play a key role in nuclear weapons development. Advanced computers make it feasible to avoid carrying out nuclear test explosions, thus preserving the program’s secrecy. The 1992 Senate hearings implicated [Hewlett Packard, Palo Alto, CA -- among others].”

Hewlett Packard said that the recipient of its shipments, Saad 16, was some sort of school in Iraq. But in 1990, the Wall St. Journal stated that Saad 16 was a “heavily fortified, state-of-the-art [Iraqi] complex for aircraft construction, missile design, and, almost certainly, nuclear-weapons research.”

There has been a considerable debate about whether Saddam hid some of his bio/chem weapons in Syria, to evade UN weapons inspectors. If he did, then is it possible the current situation in Syria has a few of its roots in the US? Is it possible some of Syria’s WMDs originally came from America?

If you review and think about all these WMD shipments from the US to Iraq, you understand there were many US officials and corporate employees who knew about them. Knew about them then, in the 1980s, and knew about them later, during 2 US wars in Iraq, when American soldiers were sent to Iraq, and could have been exposed to the biochem weapons.

Officials at the CDC and the Dept. of Commerce said nothing. People at the American Type Culture Collection said nothing. People at the Pentagon and the CIA and the NSA said nothing. Presidents said nothing. Employees of the corporations who supplied germs and chemicals said nothing.

It’s clear that the US government shipped those biochem weapons to Iraq to aid it in its war against Iran. And yes, Iraq did use chemical weapons against Iran—and also against the Iraqi Kurds. Perhaps you remember that, much later, the US government repeated, over and over, “Saddam used chemical weapons against the Kurds, his own people,” as a reason for attacking Iraq.

So is there any limit beyond which the US government wouldn’t go to foment war, to wage war?

See why it wouldn't have worked for Pappy Bush and his NWO to have a Sunni Iraq partition yet if you planned to eventually force regime change in Iran and Syria to put in Shia puppets you control in terms of the petrodollar and controlling pipeline routes. It could never work same with an independent Kurdistan which is primarily Sunni also though ethnically distinct like Persians are from Arabs when the Kurds and Turks hate each other and Arabs and Persians tend to hate each other also. The only way to make it work is all Sunni or all Shia along the route(s).

Islam as a religion is running about 600 years behind Christianity. Now, go back 600 years, and look at where Christianity was...
You land smack down in the middle of the witch-hunts in Europe.

And there you go. These folks are walking down the same damned road as Christianity, it's just that they started out a lot later than we did.
It's gonna take time...more than any of us have in our own lifetimes. If it is any consolation, our great great great grandchildren will probably get along fine with the Muslim world, and it will be some new, as-yet-unknown religion that will be giving them both grief in the future. And Muslim clerics will say shit like, "What the fuck is WRONG with these people!?"

If you are wondering what is funny, it is the fact that you can sum up thousands of years and millions or billions of people that you don't know diddly about in two sentences. As much as I hate to quote Linclon, you just "....opened your mouth and removed all doubt".

If you don't like my take on it, by all means, tell us what YOU think...
I see that you haven't offered any specifics about WHY you think me a "clown and idiot", just that you DO.

So what would be YOUR take on it?

(Notice that I have NOT stooped to insulting you for disagreeing with me, and that I have asked for YOUR opinion. This is because that is how I roll. I have learned that the stronger and more insulting the response, the fewer actual FACTS are behind it...)

Islam in Malaysia and Indonesia, for example, has little to do with the violence and terrorism associated with Arab Islam since the break up of the Ottoman Empire and colonial domination of Arab territory.

Well I think we were discussing the middle east...of course Muslims elsewhere have a different history. The experience of the arab middle easterners is uniquely theirs. And unfortunately it is a very blood-drenched history marked by incredible arrogance and stupidity on all sides. The oil just ensures that the situation will not change anytime soon.
So I'm not making a blanket statement about all Muslims...I'm only talking about the middle eastern ones, and their specific issues with the West.

"Witch hunts"? Really? That's how you describe Christianity in early Europe? We are both dealing with subjects way too complex for 3 second sound bites.

I apologize for my previous remarks. You have been cordial and respectful. I sometimes read a lot of post and then lash out at the first person to which I respond. My bad!

For the record, I will say that there is little if any comparison between true Christianity and true Islam. I could wax on and on about that, but I can assure you there is little comparison. I will agree that a lot of Christians are just as wicked and evil as a lot of Muslims. Because people call themselves something doesn't mean they truly represent the institution to which they are members. Your assessment is a little "knee jerk" at best.

What never ceases to amaze me is how we take a handful of people of any race, religion, political party, etc. and paint the entire population in the light of what we "think" we know about that group of people. They have a catchy phrase for this and it goes something like, "Divided and conquer".

Realy? So all Americans are like Michelle Obama, Alec Baldwin, Harry Reid, John McCain, Lindsay Lohan,..................? Sure there are similarities because people are people. We like to eat, do fun things, love our families, indulge our selfishness, demand our way, throw fits, help others, take advantage of others,.............................................

We are being used by the manipulators who throw up a "poster child" of who they want us to see and what they want us to think about "people like that". There is some truth to this based on nationality, customs, and traditions. But to say all muslims want to kill all Jews is ridiculous. To say all white are racist against blacks or all blacks think whites owe them, because the news loves to run racist stories or black violence against whites just to stir the pot, is to be fooled by simple manipulation and to be a fool. To say all indians give a rat's ass about the Washington Redskins' name is to be foolish.

We have got to stop letting them group us by our color, religion, address, sex, age, finances, and divide us over issues that MOST of us could care less about. We are all people and we are all guilty of just being people. Lets start dealing with people based on their actions and hold them responsible for what they do and not who they are.........like........ in color, religion, age, sex, finance, etc. Bet if we started doing this, they would have a hard time finding enough people to field an army much less fight "their" war for them.

I bet most Vietnamese have a different reason why they were fighting than we think was their reason. I know today that you can't find a large group of Americans who know why we were over there and the reason we were told back then turned out to be bs. Our own Civil War is a classic case in point. It was over slavery, right? Bullshit! Everyone with more than two brain cells knows that now, but we have been told for generations that those whites in the South had to have their slaves. When the fact is there were just as many slaves in the North. Hell, Linclon even said he wasn't fighting about slavery and when he did "free" the slaves (after two years of fighting) it was only those below the Mason Dixon Line. So why were we fighting? Same reason we will this time. Because we have been goaded into a fight by those that profit from us fighting or want to see us tear ourselvs apart. Suni vs. Shia, my ass!

Thing is once they have initiated a fight, it never ends. They just keep stiring it back up again and again because we believe everything we are told or want to believe. The biggest evil by far in the world today is headquartered in D.C. And they are the ones keeping everyone else fighting and making up the reasons for picking fights. The last SOB's on the planet I would ever believe or listen to are in D.C. If they are for it, I am against it. If they are against it, I am for it. Do you really believe they got the ring leader on the Benghazi attack? Do you really believe what they are telling you about what is going on in the middle east? It is a river of lies and it flows from D.C.

We need to be paying more attention to how they are destroying our country through debt and allowing these foreigners to invade our country by the millions each year. At least when that fight breaks out, my sons will get to do something that hasn't been done in a long time by the military in this country.........actually fight for their country.

I am in agreement with you on this. You might want to check out Synagogue of Satan on Youtube or buy the book. I don't buy into all of it but there does seem to be a lot of smoke for there to be no fire.........if you get what I am saying.

"Love of money is the root of all evil." There was a time I had my doubt about that statement but just like everything else in that "old-outdated-backwards-hated" Book, I have come to realize in time that It has a wisdom that transends the mind of man.

If you go even further back you have Mohammed hearing voices, and assuming it is God speaking to him. Oh yeah? Did he show Mohammed his ID?

Anyone who has spent some time dwelling in the meta-physical realm knows there are an abundance of "voices" to be heard. This summary came out of my expereience there: "We live in a vast, complex, multi-dimensional cosmos, populated with a variety of beings, each with their own agenda."

Who knows if it was God speaking to Mohammed? Or God speaking to Moses, for that matter. What we do know is the conversation stirred the pot pretty well, didn't it. And even if it was a high minded conversation, the human ego worked over the words and in no time and distorted them to make the belief that you needed to kill all others who did not convert.